Downingtown Area to unveil redistricting plan tonight

EAST CALN – As the Downingtown Area School District presents its redistricting proposal, it also invites the public to comment and question the plan with public meetings.

The redistricting plan for the elementary schools will be presented on tonight at 7 p.m.; the plan for the secondary schools will be presented at 7 p.m. on March 21. Both sessions will be hosted in the auditorium of Downingtown High School West campus. The committee’s first session for elementary schools was hosted on Tuesday night at Downingtown High School East campus.

According to the district’s webinar discussing the proposal, these public meetings will offer the public an opportunity to express their thoughts on the plan and pose questions to the committee. Answers to the questions will later be posted on the district’s website.

The current proposal is the result of more than six months of work performed by the 22-member Redistricting Committee. The committee is comprised of parents and community members, representative of the district and selected from more than 300 applicants.

Redistricting became a consideration when the board and administration saw a growing need to balance the student population at the elementary and middle schools, based on each building’s capacity.

For elementary schools, overcrowding is largely an issue at Pickering Valley, the most populated school in the district, currently at 101 percent capacity; and at Lionville, currently at 99.1 percent capacity. The plan proposes also decreasing capacity of Uwchlan Hills, Shamona Creek, East Ward, Beaver Creek, and West Bradford elementary schools. The plan would conversely increase the capacity of Shamona Creek, Bradford Heights, Brandywine Wallace and Springton Manor elementary schools.

For secondary schools, the plan proposes to balance the 21.4 percent disparity in student population between East and West campuses, with East campus being the more utilized of the two. The committee’s recommendation is to move the Williamsburg and Norwood House developments from East’s claim to West’s.

Criteria taken into consideration by the committee during the planning process include transportation efficiency and safety, balanced utilization of schools, keeping neighborhoods together, and ultimately moving the least number of students possible.

The committee also considered expected areas of future growth. In the next five years, the Downingtown Borough and pockets of Upper Uwchlan, East Brandywine, Uwchlan, and West Bradford townships are expected to undergo further development; and in the next five to 10 years, development is likely in Downingtown Borough, Wallace, Upper Uwchlan, West Pikeland, East Brandywine, and West Bradford townships.

New school attendance patterns are expected to become effective with the opening of the Sixth Grade Center in the 2014-15 school year.

The new high school boundaries would go into effect for the 2015-16 school year, and students currently enrolled in secondary schools will remain in their currently assigned school until 2015. Come implementation, parents in the Williamsburg and Norwood House developments have the choice to move their children in eighth, ninth, and 10th grades to Downingtown Middle School and Downingtown West; or to attend Downingtown East through graduation.

The committee considered a total of 15 plans, and voted on elementary and secondary plans separately. The final plan for elementary schools was unanimously approved by the committee, although the vote for the secondary schools plan was split 19-3.

For more information on the redistricting process and proposal, visit the school district’s website, www.dasd.org, or e-mail questions or comments to info@dasd.org.